Data

Realtime Data and Archives

Below are plotted near-realtime data from the Callisto solar radio spectrograph, Stanford SID ionospheric monitor, and DIAS/TCD magnetometer. A local K-index for Birr is also given below, which gives a measure of the disturbance of the geomagnetic field, and may be an indicator of auroral activity.

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"Trinity College Dublin". For magnetometer data, please acknowledge
"Trinity College Dublin and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies”.

Solar activity from RSTO Callisto and GOES X-ray instruments

Solar activity from I-LOFAR test Array

Earth's ionospheric activity from RSTO SID and GOES X-rays from Sun

Earth's magnetic field at RSTO from DIAS/TCD magnetometer

Geomagnetic activity from RSTO K-Index

The K-index quantifies the level of variation of the horizontal (H) component of the geomagnetic field in three-hour intervals. The

The K-index gives a measure of how disturbed the Earth's magnetic field is in Birr. Large RSTO K-indices can be used to indicate that the northern lights (aurora borealis) may be visible from Ireland.

The K-Index value given in the above graph is calculated using the FMI (Finnish Meteorological Institute) method. This method allows us to estimate and subtract the solar-quiet variations in the magnetometer data. The steps undertaken in this method are as follows:

1) The raw magnetometer data is cleaned: a moving hour long window is used, and any values which deviate more than 3-sigma are discarded.

2) For each 3 hour block (00:00 - 03:00, 03:00-06:00, etc), the variation between the maximum and minimum of the two horizontal B-field values are compared to the following table to get an initial K-index n;

3) For each hour of the day, the average horizontal values for that hour +/- (n + m) minutes are calculated, where n is the initial K-index, and m is a constant which depends on the time of day. Together, these points give a rough estimate of the solar-quiet variation.

4) This rough estimate for the solar-quiet variation is then smoothed. This can be seen for a geomagnetically active day in the following plot:

5) The smoothed solar-quiet variation is taken away from the raw data. This is then used as in step 2 to get a secondary K-index.

6) Steps 3-5 are then repeated using the secondary K-Index to finally calculate the third and final K-index. This last K-index is what is displayed above.